Sarah Chang grows from child prodigy to virtuoso

By Georgia Rowe

Correspondent

Posted:
03/05/2013 12:00:00 PM PST

Updated:
03/06/2013 08:07:56 AM PST

Sarah Chang has come a long way since her days as a child prodigy.

At 32, the acclaimed violinist is a far cry from the 9-year-old who made her Bay Area debut in 1991 with the California Symphony. Introduced by Barry Jekowsky, the orchestra's then-music director, she came onstage at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek as a youngster. But her performance of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto made audiences and critics alike sit up and take notice.

Today, Chang laughs at the memory.

"Oh my goodness, I was just a baby," the Philadelphia-based musician says. "But whenever I'm in the Bay Area, people still come up to me and say 'I was at your debut.' "

Chang, who returns to the Bay Area this weekend for performances Saturday in San Francisco, Sunday in Walnut Creek and Monday in Palo Alto, jokes about those early days -- recalling how she grew out of her concert dresses as quickly as her mother could buy them, and how, before email, they had to fax her homework assignments back home from the road.

But one thing is certain: In that first Bay Area appearance, Chang stepped into the spotlight and never looked back.

Rare recitals

Today, she's a top-rated artist, one who's appeared with virtually every major orchestra in the world.

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Named one of 20 Top Women in Newsweek magazine's "Women and Leadership" issue, she was recently appointed to President Barack Obama's Commission on Russian Relations and as a State Department Special Cultural Envoy -- all while maintaining a schedule that includes more than 100 concerts a year.

Presented by Chamber Music San Francisco, the three appearances feature Chang in a rare recital. With pianist Ashley Wass, she will perform Paganini's Cantabile in D major, Vitale's Chaconne in G minor, Prokofiev's Sonata No. 2 in D major and a new arrangement of Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story" created just for her by Hollywood film composer David Newman.

In a phone call from New York, Chang said she can't wait.

"I don't really do that many recitals -- about 95 percent of what I do is playing concerto repertoire with orchestras -- so I'm starting to do more of them, and that's really exciting."

Newman's arrangement of "West Side Story," which Chang premiered last year, is a new favorite.

"It's fantastic," she says. "I love what David's done with it. He kept the structure and essence of Bernstein's score, but he's made it into a very virtuosic violin piece."

Chang was well-prepared for success. Her father was a violinist, and she started playing at age 4; the following year, she began formal training at the Juilliard School. Her principal teacher was the legendary Dorothy DeLay; mentors included Yehudi Menuhin (who called her "the most wonderful, perfect, ideal violinist I have ever heard") and Isaac Stern (today, Chang plays Stern's violin, the 1717 Guarneri del Gesu.)

Getting contemporary

She signed with EMI Classics in 1992 and has recorded 20 albums for the label -- most recently, a disc of the Brahms and Bruch violin concertos.

"I've been extremely fortunate," she says. "I played two auditions in my entire life -- one was for Zubin Mehta, and the other was for Riccardo Muti. That led to concerts, and those ended up becoming a recording contract. The ball just started rolling. I had the right support system and the right people looking after me, and that made all the difference."

Chang continues to expand her boundaries. Although she loves Romantic composers -- Brahms is her all-time favorite -- she's made a point of commissioning and premiering new works by contemporary composers such as Richard Danielpour and Christopher Theofanidis.

Working with living composers is a treat, she says: "You can call them up and say 'That's too hard -- what were you thinking?' "

In some respects, Chang seems a typical young woman -- smart, bubbly, quick to laugh. She loves shopping -- shoes are a passion -- and admits to a collection of concert gowns that would make any Oscar nominee envious. In recent years, she's built a loyal Twitter following.

Yet Chang remains focused on her career and says the infinite variety of classical music has left her with no desire to cross over.

"I'm happy where I am," she says. "The violin is one of those instruments where there's just so much repertoire, there's no time to get bored. It's endless -- I could spend my lifetime doing this and not be done. I just never get tired of it, and I'm still having fun."